Slimmer future for heavy kids who get help early: studies

Oct 30 (Reuters) - Weight-loss programs can help even veryyoung children slim down, and it appears that acting early mayimprove the odds of success, according to two European studies.

Excessive pounds in childhood often stay into adulthood,where they have been linked to heart disease, diabetes and otherhealth problems.

In one study, which appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics &Adolescent Medicine, scientists in the Netherlands found thatheavy three- to five-year-olds saw continued benefits from aweight-loss intervention at least several months after it ended.

A report from Sweden showed that overweight and obesechildren under 10 were much more likely to have slower weightgain than were adolescents getting similar behavioraltreatments.

"What they are showing is a pretty consistent trend that ifwe were to intervene early, we could really have an effect onchanging the trajectory of weight gain in children," said ElsieTaveras, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School and BostonChildren's Hospital, who co-wrote an editorial on the findings.

Taveras said there is mounting evidence that payingattention to young kids may be a promising way to stem theglobal obesity epidemic. In 2008, more than a third of U.S.youths were either overweight or obese, according to the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention.

The numbers have also been on the rise in Europe, althoughthey are lower than in the United States.

The Dutch researchers, led by Gianni Bocca of BeatrixChildren's Hospital in Groningen, studied 75 heavy children whohad been randomly assigned to either usual care or an intensiveweight-loss program. The program lasted four months and involved25 sessions with dietary advice, exercise and, for the parents,behavioral counseling.

A year after the study began, children in the interventiongroup had gained 1.9 kilograms (4.2 lbs) on average, and thosewho got usual care had added another 3 kg (6.8 lbs).

While that difference could have been due to chance, therewas a statistically reliable difference in body mass index(BMI), a measure of height in relation to weight.

Children in the intervention group went down one unit inBMI, while the others saw no change.

"The magnitude of the effect, especially initially after theintervention, wasn't very large, but what needs to be taken intoaccount was that these children were growing," Taveras said.

"What these interventions are showing is that you can havean effect, and hopefully these interventions are changing thetrajectory these children were headed towards."

She cautioned, though, that the Swedish findings, in a studyled by Pernilla Danielsson of Karolinska Institutet inStockholm, were based on observations instead of an experiment.

That means it's possible that the children between 14 and16, who saw no or little effect of the behavioral treatment,could have been particularly tough cases.

Still, Taveras said, there is good evidence that heavychildren who start weight-loss programs early have an easiertime slimming down.

"I hope that in a few years there will be more examples ofprograms that aren't just clinical that we can send familiesto," she said.SOURCE: http://bit.ly/PoqxGc